USDA Data Visualization Tool

Advertiser Disclosure ▾

This page contains affiliate links from which we receive a compensation. Like many publications Wise Bread is supported by affiliate commission from partner companies whose products appear on our site. This may influence which products we write about and the location and order in which products appear. We aren't able to cover every product in the marketplace.

Wise Bread Picks

• Travel Rewards Credit Cards
• Cash Back Credit Cards
• 0% Balance Transfer Credit Cards

The USDA has just released a cool new data visualization tool called Your Food Environment Atlas. If you're interested in poverty, food security, or the related public policy issues, there's a bunch of stuff here that's worth taking a look at.

The tool gives you county-level maps on topics like:

• How many low-income households have no grocery store within 1 mile?
• Is whole grain much more expensive than refined grain?
• How many farmers markets are there?
• What's the poverty rate?
• Which counties are losing population?
• What percentage of adults are obese?

The idea is that you can cross-reference and compare metrics on health and well-being with community characteristics and food choices. You can also get all the data for a particular county.

I assume the tool is primarily aimed at people who have a public policy interest in one of these areas, but it should also be of interest to others. For example, people who are thinking about moving might be very interested in looking at maps of various statistics before pulling up the complete statistics for any counties that look interesting.

Check it out:  Your Food Environment Atlas.